:That' s good. Thank you, Bella. Anything else?: 

I think that's all! Thank you very much for everything.

:You're welcome: He drops the link. 

Bella alerts the Valdemarans that the Ifteli are out of the way and they can all go home!

Vanyel has somewhat complicated feelings on the matter. Going home is going to be awkward. He'll have to talk to Savil, and it's not like he can even really explain himself. But he's also pretty eager to be back in his own room. He mildly prefers to go back at the same time as Bella but can go sooner if she'd prefer. 

"I can't cast the spells all at the same time, I'll have to send people and then teleport myself - sending is a little cheaper in mana than summoning - but we can do it all within a couple minutes, sure. Where do you each want to land?"

"My room is fine." 

Sayshen and Yfandes glance at each other. :Companions' Field, the spot where the path turns off to Vanyel's building: Sayshen suggests. :Was there anything you needed to finish up here before we go?: 

"Had a thing to discuss with Leareth and I don't know how long it'll run."

:All right, we can hang out here: 

Sayshen switches to private Mindspeech with Bella alone. :I absolutely should not do this and I'm not going to, and it probably wouldn't even work, but – I keep being curious if I have deliberate control of the bonding mechanism now, or could get it. And the prankster part of me is tempted to try Choosing Leareth, just to see the look on his face. I don't actually even want to be bonded to him or anything, just, I bet his reaction would be hilarious: 

It would be very funny but I agree you should absolutely not do this even if the look on his face and on every other Herald's face would be priceless. Do you even want to be bonded to anybody, at this point -

:Eh. Not really. Most Companions don't really get to be their own person, you know? If you're tied closely enough to someone else, there isn't room: 

I've noticed that, yeah. Some wizards have familiars, it's almost more like that - assistant animals, usually smaller, cats and ravens. Which are normal animals till they get turned into familiars as far as I know. Bella heads to breakfast.

Leareth is talking to several of the mage-scholars at a table; he sees Bella and nods to her. 

She collects food and sits nearby, waiting patiently.

He finishes his conversation, puts away his empty plate. :Bella, do you wish to continue yesterday's discussion now?: 

Depends how long it'll run. The Ifteli left and we can go home, so if it'll take all day I would sooner schedule for another time, either remotely or teleporting in.

:It depends how you want to do it: He starts walking with her. :There are over a thousand people to do it with, which I assume you cannot do all yourself in a day, but if you wish to delegate some of it then you could coordinate that today, I think: 

This is just the compulsions or is it also the tidy writeup of other potential surprises?

:The latter should not take more than a candlemark to review, unless you have a very large number of clarifying questions on it: 

Okay. Let's look it all over bird's-eye-view now and I'll think it over and get back to you.

:Of course:

Leareth walks with her to a different, private room. He shuts the door, and gets out a book. "There have been a number of events, obviously, so I have tried to categorize them, rather than go through individual instances over the centuries." He looks down. "First. I...played a significant role in the events that led to the Cataclysm eighteen hundred years ago. I do not think I am primarily at fault – I did not start the war, nor was I the one wielding the weapon that ultimately caused all the destruction – and I do not think I made any mistakes where, at the time, I could have had any way of predicting the consequences, but I did make mistakes, and the consequences did happen." 

"I don't know much about the Cataclysm - what happened?"

"Note that much of this is not events I personally remember, and has been reconstructed." Leareth looks down. "I studied under a mage named Urtho. He was a brilliant man who made innovations in a number of areas, and ended up as Archmage of a kingdom of the time, Tantara, and running a large academy there. I returned to my home kingdom and over some years, attained a position as the King's advisor. Predain had more problems than Tantara. I attempted solutions. Some of them were stupid solutions; I was very young. Urtho was afraid of my ambition, though I had not as far as I know shown any indication that we wanted to invade Tantara. He started a war, opening with a surprise attack that killed many of my kingdom's people. I fought back, and I will admit I did so ruthlessly. We both ended up as the de facto rulers of our two nations." 

"I think that I tried to open peace talks with him until the end, but - when it looked like my side would win, he evacuated his people from the Tower and gave a magical superweapon he had built and concealed and never spoken of to a strike team of gryphons – gryphons are a species he created, he was very proud of them. Then he called down a Final Strike and set off a number of other safeguards, destroying his own Tower to prevent my accessing any of its resources. Less than a day later, the team sent to kill me arrived with the weapon and set it off – I do not think it was a very skillfully executed assassination, but it did not need to be, they had a weapon powerful enough that it nearly destroyed the world. I think that Urtho did not know how much damage it would cause. Possibly it was worse because of the disturbance his Final Strike had already caused, and because there was an active Gate linked to a network of permanent Gate-termini nearby." 

She listens silently, occasionally nodding a little.

"Your memories - what's up with that, and should I have on the back burner eventually figuring out how to get them back - I don't know if it bothers you as much as it would me, but -"